ARC: Hot Ticket (Sinners on Tour #3) – Olivia Cunning

There are things in bassist Jace Seymour’s past that he is unwilling to share with anyone. To cover his guilt and anguish, he seeks dominatrix Mistress V (Aggie) to temporarily placate his inner turmoil.

Aggie doesn’t have much use for men–besides the power rush she gets when they’re begging for mercy at her feet–but Jace isn’t like her usual clients. His cool defiance and unexpected dominance in the bedroom drives her to distraction and quickly steals her heart.

When circumstances threaten Jace’s position in Sinners, Aggie must help him regain his rightful place in the band while showing him that time and love can heal all wounds.

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My Review

There are things in his past that he just doesn’t want to share with anyone and so to take away the guilt, Jace Seymour likes to feel pain by being punished. One night he seeks out Aggie, who is Dominatrix Mistress V to temporarily make him forgot for a while.

Aggie doesn’t really like men; she thinks they are all sleazy. She gets a power rush when they are at her feet, begging her for mercy. But when she spots Jace, he isn’t like any of her usual clients. He doesn’t scream when she hits him, he just stands there and takes it with a hard exterior. Because of this, she knows he’s got a closet full of secrets and pushing away her list of guys, she is slowly falling for the quiet one of the band. She wants to help him through his past and show him that he is loved by everyone including herself and he deserves to be happy after feeling guilty for so long.

Hot Ticket is Jace’s story. The quiet one of the band. The one who doesn’t let anyone in and fears if he did, they wouldn’t want him in the band anymore so he keeps quiet. Before Hot Ticket, I hadn’t really thought much of Jace. He seems to keep to himself so you never really knew much about him in the other two books (I’m disregarding Double Time, which is meant to be book five even though it was released as book three) but in his book you can see how much the band means to him and how much music is such a big part of his life that he wouldn’t know what to do without it. He doesn’t crave attention like the other members, he’s just there to play great music.

Oliva Cunning did a great job in writing Jace’s character. You kind of know from the first two books that Jace likes to be hit – to feel pain but you never really know why until now. In Rock Hard, when they are in the strip club for Brian’s stag night and Sed says he sees Jace go towards the girl with a whip and in leather – that is Aggie. He seeks her out in return to cover up his guilt and anguish over his childhood and his demons that he has locked away all his life.

Jace has things from his past that he would sooner forget and by visiting dominatrix’s, they can stop his turmoil, if only for a few minutes. When he sees Aggie, he knows he must have her inflict pain on him but he never thought that she would worm her way into his heart and try to help him through his past.

Aggie likes her job at the strip club. She likes being a Dom as it gives her power over the clients she has. She likes having them beg for mercy. She doesn’t like men and has two lists. List A: Men not worth my time and List B: Men I’d like to fuck. All of the men have been in List A, but then when she spots Jace, he’s the first man to be put into List B and possibly her new list, List C: Men I can’t instantly label. Aggie could instantly see that Jace was hiding pain behind his calm exterior. He wanted pain, she gave it to him but in turn, her heart was fluttering for him, which never happens to her with clients.

She’s there for Jace and helps him open up about his past. Even with him attempting to push her away in some scenes, she never leaves him as she is completely head over heels for him and she knows he loves her too, even if he can’t show his emotions or feelings because of his past. She shows him so much love and shows him it’s okay to bare his soul and past to her, she’s not going anywhere. It was great that Aggie stood her ground with Jace and slowly, he began to tell her the pain of his past and the scars of his heart. These scenes were quite emotional to read, as I began to really love Jace so by reading about his anguish over his past and reading what happened, they pulled my heartstring and made me want to climb into my kindle and give him a massive hug.

Because of his past, Jace also feels that he’s not good enough. Not good enough for the band, not good enough to be loved; none of this is true. The band absolutely adore him and only tease him because they love him and this proves that he is loved by everyone in his life. As he didn’t really have a childhood, he had to grow up fast and so by all the teasing, he feels that he’s not wanted, but that is not true and Aggie eventually gets through to him that the band love him and that’s why they tease him.

It was fantastic to see how much progress Jace had done with telling Aggie about his past to showing his emotions to her in front of the band. It made me so proud of him to come out of his shell and let go of the guilt he’s felt for so many years. And it’s all thanks for Aggie.

Now for someone who isn’t a fan of BSDM (I just about got through with 50 Shades) it drew me in with the descriptions of what was happening and what both Jace and Aggie were doing to each other. It wasn’t heavy going and it didn’t make me want to skip it. I knew when I read the synopsis I was either going to love or hate this book because of the BDSM but I loved it. The sex was utterly smoking hot!! Olivia definitely knows how to write a sex scene to make you all flustered when reading it and it’s the same in Hot Ticket. Although there was less sex in this book than the others, it definitely doesn’t mean that the scenes were any less inadequate than the other three books because holy moly it wasn’t. Jace and Aggie had such great chemistry and they were so perfect for one another.

From the first two books (and the last) Jace has always looked up to Eric (You’ll know why in this book) – the drummer of the band – and in Hot Ticket, you finally see why that is. Eric calls Jace ‘Little Man’ because he’s the smallest and youngest of the band. Jace feels that Eric saved his life all those years ago and so he’s been Eric’s biggest fan since. They have a strange relationship as Eric can be a bit of an arsehole to Jace but you find out that really, Eric thinks of Jace as his best friend in the band. It was the cutest line ever in this book between the two and although Jace was still understanding how much the band really did love him, it was hard for him to believe but he got there in the end. I cannot wait for Eric’s book and to see how this friendship develops.

I loved Hot Ticket. It possesses hot sex, demons, guilt, love and of course drama. But with The Sinners there is always so drama 😉 it wouldn’t be them without it. I love Olivia Cunning and her books and if you haven’t read any of The Sinner’s books yet, then click on Olivia Cunning in my category dropdown box on the side and get reading my reviews. You will be panting just to get your hands on these books!

When Eric’s book is out, I am definitely planning to re-read all the books in order.

Thanks to Netgalley for supplying me with an ARC copy of Hot Ticket via the publisher in return for an honest return.